Chapter 16

"Mitch, 'sup?" the kid at the counter hailed my young acquaintance.

"Kory, I wanna find this dude here a laptop. What's the nicest piece of iron you got?"

"For reals? Wow, uhh ... you need wireless, bluetooth, the works?"

"Yes," I agreed, seeing Mitch nodding his head. In my head I was wondering what the hell bluetooth was.

"Probably this HP then, he said turning back to the combination shelving unit and display. "802.11 N & G wireless adapter, 100 meg ethernet adapter, three usb ports, built in lightscribe DVD/CD combo burner..."

"Yeah," Mitch interrupted him. "Big hard drive, fast processor Windows 7 ultimate?"

"No man, you know we don't get anything that comes with that factory installed. Windows 7 home premium though."

"Probably more than enough for this guy. Kory, this is Cooper. Cooper, this is My friend Kory."

We exchanged nods, which seemed to be this generation's answer to the handshake.

"Mostly I'm wanting email and internet access," I reminded Mitch. "Everything else is gravy."

"Oh this has a lot of gravy then, far as you're concerned," Kory offered with a gulp. I saw him visibly straighten himself, clearing his throat at the same time. "This is listed at $1245.00 Cooper."

I could tell that he expected that price to give me pause, but I had meant it when I told Mitch I wanted fast and painless shopping.

"I'll take it," I pulled my wallet out and dropped my credit card on the counter top.

Mitch slowed me down at that point and made Kory set it up and let us test it out for a few minutes, just to make sure, he said, that it didn't 'brick' as soon as it I turned it on.

'Brick?' I thought to myself while I raised an eyebrow Mitch's way but the eyebrow got no response. This must be some current replacement for 'dead as a doornail'.

I was glad in the end for Mitch's efforts right then because I was able to watch him respond to the laptop's popping up a little notification in one corner saying it had detected wireless networks and asking if I wanted to connect to one of them. He did, followed quickly by opening a new window to something with a big blue 'e' with a swirl on it, and very quickly using that to install a few other programs. I was mostly busy with Kory at the time, so I didn't see too much of what he did exactly, but when he finished, he turned to me. "Okay, I've installed Google Chrome for you, so you'll have a decent browser," he pointed at the new item on the screen. "I also took the time to install Libre Office for you so you'll have a decent set of office apps. The antivirus software that comes with the computer is fine for now, and this top of the line machine has a full year's coverage, so that's good. Just don't forget to renew it! You know what a pain it can be if you get a virus. There's a 90 day trial version of a decent spyware tool on here too, but I'd recommend switching to something better when that expires."

I acted as if I knew what he was talking about, but man, I was totally lost. I tried to keep it from showing as I thanked him.

"Mitch, if there's anything I can ever do for you, just let me know," I said as we walked back towards the internet cafe, as I now knew it was classified by Mitch and Kory. I gave him my cell number and he gave me his, along with his email address, accepting my explanation that I just hadn't had time to set up a personal one since I got home.

We actually shook hands when we parted. The first thing I did then was head to the book store. I needed some sort of help understanding this computer stuff.

I got home that afternoon with a book called 'Computers for Dummies', another whole series of books for Seniors that were very visual, which helped immensely, and even a DVD. I was not surprised when I got home and logged into my new laptop to find that it couldn't find a wireless connection. I looked through the list of numbers that Darius had left me and saw that one one of them was for a cable TV and internet provider. I was pretty sure the house had satellite TV, not cable, so I wasn't sure what they were on the list for, but Darius had said the house was fully wired for computers, so maybe they did have something set up.

It was the Saturday of a long holiday weekend, but I decided what the heck, and gave the number a call, and damned if someone didn't answer! In fits and starts, I was able to get the person on the other end to find the records for the James' account.

"The account has been suspended sir," I was told. I then began the laborious task of explaining that I was neither of the people whose names were on the account, and then had to explain why I was calling instead of them. It had helped that someone, probably Darius, had been thoughtful enough to suspend the account rather than cancel it. I had been wrong about the satellite TV here, finding that the James' had both Cable TV and internet access provided by them.

I wasn't surprised to find that the package they had previously was what the operator called 'basic plus'. It offered their minimal cable channels plus an additional business and news bundle, with the 'plain vanilla' internet access. I upgraded on the spot to their 'premium' offering, which was less than eighty bucks a month. It included some options that I didn't currently have, and I worried that the internet access would be beyond my abilities to activate, since I had no idea where to find the devices that were supposed to already be installed.